Circus Freak Pickled Punk Pedal Review

Hailing from Grand Rapids, Michigan,
Circus Freak Effects is a relative newcomer
to the pedal game. The pedals they
build, however, reflect the musical experience
amassed by cofounder A.J. Dunning,
whose band the Verve Pipe was a staple of
’90s adult alternative radio.

Dunning’s experience as a performing
guitarist means a lot of Circus Freak’s pedals
have their roots in classic stompboxes. But
while Circus Freak pedals may be inspired
by a classic from Dunning’s collection, each
is an original circuit built into a heavy-duty
custom enclosure and dressed up in early
20th-century freak-show poster art. In the
case of the analog Pickled Punk distortion,
the company aimed at high-gain ’80s and
’90s tones, and the resulting pedal packs a
serious punch.

Punked a Pickled Pepper
Given the glut of pedals built into the same
old Hammond-style enclosure, Pickled
Punk’s tough, lightweight aluminum housing
is a refreshing change of pace. It’s molded
from extruded die-cast aluminum that
contains at least 50-percent recycled material,
which makes it light without sacrificing
durability, and a bit more eco-friendly than
a typical stompbox.

The bottom of the enclosure is home to
a unique mount design that enables you
to lock the box onto rail-type pedalboards,
like a Pedal Train, without using Velcro,
but it also has plenty of flat space to attach
Velcro if your board has a completely flat
surface area.

The lithographed artwork is printed on
a sheet of foil—a cool touch, to be sure,
though there are also some slight bumps
you can feel along its edges. But the colors
are vibrant and the art itself is quite eye-catching.
Yet for all the thought that Circus
Freak put into the enclosure’s design, it’s a bit
surprising that they didn’t throw in a battery
door for replacing the 9V battery. The only way to get to it is by removing several hex
screws and pulling off one of the side panels.
That said, there’s a little extra versatility in
the fact that the adapter jack can accommodate
a 9–18V power source.

The Pickled Punk’s handbuilt, through-hole
circuit is completely analog, and the
simple control layout consists of three knobs: volume level, tone sweep, and distortion.
Each control turns smoothly, with a comfortable
amount of resistance, and the soft-touch
footswitch feels sturdy underfoot. Instead of
true-bypass switching, the Pickled Punk also
uses buffered full-bypass circuitry to compensate
for signal loss with longer cables.

Punky Bruiser
No matter where the
Pickled Punk’s gain control
is set, its tones tend
to be pretty meaty. There
is an immense amount
of volume on tap, which
helps deliver its sounds
with a powerful and
uncompressed punch.
While the Pickled Punk
doesn’t generate the paint
peeling levels of gain
you’d get from a vintage
ProCo Rat, the thick and
weighty delivery of the
pedal’s tone is impressive
enough to make the
Pickled Punk stand out
among distortion peers.

The Pickled Punk is
at home with the output
from single-coils and
humbuckers. But a good
Stratocaster or Telecaster
arguably does the better
job of coaxing details
out of the base distortion tone, like the prickly edge on its walloping, fat midrange, and the sharp attack in the
high end.

With a Stratocaster bridge pickup
engaged, the pedal’s gain up halfway, and
an Orange TH100 providing amplification,
the pedal dished a lush, sustaining
overdrive. Digging into the strings
brought brightness in the high end that
works well with the Punk’s snappy responsiveness.
Unlike most high-gain distortion
pedals, maxing the gain control added chunkiness and punch in the mids and
lows without drastically compressing and
saturating the tone. And in this cranked
setting, the level of distortion was more
in line with what you hear when you set a
Marshall JCM800’s gain control at around
2 o’clock—a healthy amount of gain for
’70s and ’80s hard rock, but not quite
enough for copping the heavier ’90s-era
tones forged by Jerry Cantrell or James
Hetfield, at least with a clean-ish amp.
Yet with a little grit dialed up on the
Orange’s dirty channel, the Pickled Punk
pushed the tone further into those more
devilish territories.

The extra output from a humbucker-equipped
Gibson Les Paul hit the pedal’s
input harder and produced distortion with
a rounder midrange and slightly looser
lows. You can dial up thick bluesy lead
tones by dropping the gain down to around
11 o’clock and switching to the neck pickup,
or produce fat modern psychedelic rock
tones by lowering the neck pickup’s tone
control all the way, and diming the pedal’s
tone and distortion knobs.

The pedal’s tone control sweeps through
the distortion’s range with much smoother-sounding
results with humbuckers too.
After I set the distortion knob to 4 o’clock
and brought the tone past 3 o’clock, the
pedal unleashed a massive and thick wall of
sound that had an uncanny resemblance to
the raging opening riff from the Smashing
Pumpkins’ “Quiet.” There was plenty of distortion
at this point, but not so much that
the lows and mids lost definition. Circus
Freak was smart to not let the Pickled Punk
fall into the tone-robbing trap of putting too
much gain at your fingertips. Instead, there’s
just enough to keep the tone relatively open-sounding
and punchy throughout the range.

The Verdict
The Pickled Punk’s tough enclosure, simple
and forgiving performance, and mammoth
tone make it a force to be reckoned with,
yet it’s still very musical. Even the most
basic distortion tones are muscular, but this
pedal is also a welcome change from the
plethora of modern distortion devices that
drown your guitar’s tone in ridiculously
high levels of molten gain. Modern metal
players will probably miss that extra bit of
gain to cover heavier styles. But if you’re
looking for a pedal with a sound that puts
punch and organic body ahead of ungodly
amounts of gain, the Pickled Punk may be
just the ticket.

Watch our video review:

A native of the Pacific Northwest, Jordan grew up traveling the country as the son of theater technical directors and speech instructors. His exposure to the performing arts early on helped foster his love for music and attention to detail, and upon receiving his first guitar at age 15, he became hooked. Jordan brings a considerable background of gear knowledge and tech experience to Premier Guitar, and has contributed an extensive amount of articles, artist interviews and Rig Rundown videos since late 2008. He lives in the Iowa City area, where he also works to bring music education initiatives to both local and regional communities.

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